At the least 49 folks died of thirst in a distant a part of the Sahara Desert in northern Niger after the truck they have been carrying broke down, authorities mentioned.
The group was getting back from Mali, the place they’d been attending celebrations of the Islamic pageant Eid al-Adha, after they ran out of water and have become stranded greater than 80 kilometers west of Asamaka, the primary border crossing between Niger and Algeria.
“The vacationers discovered themselves trapped within the coronary heart of a harsh setting the place excessive temperatures and lack of provides made survival extraordinarily troublesome,” Governor Agadez mentioned.
The one survivors have been the 2, who trekked by way of the desert to Asamaka, the place they alerted the authorities.
“That is one thing we now have been opposing for years,” Chehuo Azizou, head of a neighborhood NGO, instructed the BBC.
“We have now been warning motorists, vacationers and everybody concerned in immigration operations concerning the risks of crossing the desert. This latest incident isn’t uncommon. We normally witness such incidents on routes to Libya and Algeria.”
On this newest incident, the truck left the Malian city of Telkhandek however deviated from its deliberate route, Agadez’s assertion mentioned.
The motive force and passenger made repeated makes an attempt over a number of days to restore the automobile, however have been finally unsuccessful.
“With out water and unable to restore their automobiles,” most individuals didn’t survive, the assertion added.
“Dozens of our bodies have been discovered underneath and across the caught truck,” the assertion mentioned.
The victims, all Nigerien nationals, have been buried in mass graves by rescue groups dispatched to the scene by native authorities.
Rescuers mentioned they have been getting back from the scene after they encountered one other broken-down truck carrying greater than 60 individuals who had been stranded for 3 days as a result of a battery failure.
The governor mentioned in a later assertion that the truck departed from the Malian city of Harouba, greater than 300 kilometers from the Niger border.
Rescue groups, together with members of the Nigerian navy, distributed water to “exhausted and stranded vacationers” and helped restore their automobiles so they might safely resume their journeys.
The Niger Desert stays a significant transit route for migrants from throughout West Africa heading for Europe, typically overcoming the dangers related to the treacherous journey.
Agadez, the governor of the closest metropolis, mentioned the tragedy “highlights the vulnerability of younger folks engaged in migrant work and cross-border financial actions,” who’re “typically compelled to transit by way of unstable areas with a view to survive or search higher residing situations.”
